I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending feedback for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission.
II. Background
In a wireless communication system, a transmitter may utilize multiple (T) transmit antennas for data transmission to a receiver equipped with multiple (R) receive antennas. The multiple transmit and receive antennas form a MIMO channel that may be used to increase throughput and/or improve reliability. For example, the transmitter may transmit up to T data streams simultaneously from the T transmit antennas to improve throughput. Alternatively, the transmitter may transmit a single data stream from all T transmit antennas to improve reception by the receiver.
Good performance (e.g., high throughput) may be achieved by transmitting data on eigenmodes of the MIMO channel. The eigenmodes may be viewed as orthogonal spatial channels. The receiver may estimate the MIMO channel response, derive a transmit steering matrix based on a MIMO channel response matrix, and send the transmit steering matrix to the transmitter. The transmitter may then perform spatial processing with the transmit steering matrix to send data on the eigenmodes.
Valuable radio resources are used to send the transmit steering matrix from the receiver to the transmitter. There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to efficiently send the transmit steering matrix so that overhead may be reduced.